Say the world was like Newton believed: everything going like clockwork, with nothing happening that wasn't planned. People would still be doing sinful things, as defined by the Bible; yet, there would be no free will.[...] You cannot prove whether or not we live in a deterministic universe with no free will.

Are you trying to waste our time here? Why propose something that you admit cannot be proved?

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When Luk says "free will" he actually means "human", because, as we know, animals can't sin, because they have no free will. (circular definition)

You made a mistake by assuming what I mean. Humans are not the only ones with free will.

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There are some types of "sin" that I can think of(1) individual survival: here an individual steals food off another, so he can survive. This is defined as a sin by the Bible, but animals have no problem doing it. Stealing can make life easier for the animal/person that does it.(2) stimulatory decadence: person gets hooked on drugs and drags their girlfriend into it. He then lives with dope addicts, surrounded by stolen parts, and melodramatic people sleeping in his hallway, stealing his stuff. Cool lifestyle, bro.(3) optional psychopathic sin: person just decides to kill his neighbour, or steal funds from retirement fund, for kicks

You are wrong. There is only one type of sin : saying "no" to God. (or in the case of atheist to their conscience)

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So, you can see that some sin makes your life easier, and some sin makes your life harder. Screw around and get HIV; your life gets harder. Behave like a suburban square and play by the rules, never give money to charity, then your life gets easier.

Sin will never make life easier. Not giving your money to charity doesn't get you a job.

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Jesus says "give all your money away",

You made a mistake. He did not teach us that. You should read the passage again.

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Jesus says don't think about food,

Again, another mistake. You should really refresh your memory.

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However, most humans are probably compelled to commit this sin, due to lack of freedom.

You are wrong. Eating animals is not a sin. God asked st peter to KILL and eat animals.

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Another thing which diminishes freedom is a brain tumour, that makes you so bad tempered that you want to shoot kids in school. When a child does that, he is a deemed an evil sinner, but when a brain scan shows a tumour, everyone suddenly understands that he had diminished freedom. Then he's a poor victim.

We agree, but how is this related to God? If you want to list all the things that diminish our freedom, you won't have enough space on the internet. (or time)

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The reason Christianity likes the words "free will", is that it's all about blame. The religion just doesn't work without people blaming and judging, being neurotic and guilty.

And you know that because...?

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even if we lived in one [universe] where events could be random, the deck is still stacked against us, because of diminished freedom

You need to prove how is your freedom giving us less power against the deck. I would think it is the opposite, freedom allows us to fight the deck that is stacked against us.

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Christianity likes to pretend that the guy in the wheelchair with allergies, had the freedom to get healed and give his money away and go help people in Africa, because keeping that dream alive helps people be in a perpetual state of guilt.

Takes two to tango, Luk. Perhaps if your purported god wasn't perennially perturbed about picayune peccadilos like leavened loaves, scarfing of shrimp scampi, and working on the weekend, "sin" would be a non-issue and painful and lethal childhood illnesses would just magically go away.

Or perhaps not. I think it far more likely that there is no supernatural component at all to suffering, and that sin bad stuff simply can't be prevented or eliminated by a god who was never there in the first place.

Or another case? You wanted to rape a woman. The woman asks god to stop you. God *poofs* you away. Did god violate your free will?

In that hypothetical case, Yes. He wouldn't have violate my free will if he did not poof me away and allowed me to explain to my handicapped amnesic wife that we are married and that I was just wanted to change her gown.

But that's sort of the opposite of the case I was presenting. If god did *poof* you away, did god violate your free will?

It has been brought to my attention that I have been in error with the above, and Lukvance has indeed answered my questions. Lukvance does say that yes, in the hypothetical situations I presented, god does indeed violate his free will.

What I don't understand yet is why Lukvance doesn't consider the situation of god providing evidence of his existence to person A when person B does not want person A to have this evidence to be a violation of person B's free will.

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"When we landed on the moon, that was the point where god should have come up and said 'hello'. Because if you invent some creatures, put them on the blue one and they make it to the grey one, you f**king turn up and say 'well done'."

How do you know that they had a will before being created? Are you saying that giving birth is not a good thing?

Your god, being omniscient and all, could and, if it/he exists, did foresee that some would not wish to have been created. So, while they did not have a will, technically, from your god's perspective, they might as well have had.Giving birth can be a bad thing.

Not at all. You are hugely mistaken. Demanding is not impairing your free will.

A demand from an omnipotent being that can, quite literally, toss you into Hell for all eternity if you don't do as it asks isn't impairing free will? Tell me, if you see someone robbing a bank with a gun and demanding others get on their knees, are they not impairing the other people's free will, even if they don't actually harm them?

Keep waiting? I thought I demonstrated to you how crazy this idea was and how it could never work.

Is your god not omnipotent? Can't it/he even just make it look as if the paintings had turned into the originals, without actually turning them into the originals? *looks up* I guess not... Your god sucks.

What I don't understand yet is why Lukvance doesn't consider the situation of god providing evidence of his existence to person A when person B does not want person A to have this evidence to be a violation of person B's free will.

I don't understand the question.I am A you are B. Why god doesn't provide you proof of his existence when You don't want me to have this evidence to be a violation of my will?

I can breathe without the intervention of any deity. I'm doing it now.

Well, you certainly can't prove that.

Since there are many, many, many proposed deities, it would be quicker to demonstrate that there IS on involved. I invite you to pray that your god interfere with my breathing. He needn't kill me, just stop my breathing for, say, a minute at 7:30 pm central time.

It has been over a month since I made this post. Since then, my breathing has not been interrupted once. I therefore conclude that there are no gods who control my breathing.

Funny luk is one of the theists here who claim the OT is just a group of gathered stories made as a manual for teaching mankind how to live..... Then they use it as a reference guide for actual factual events they claim are real.

How can you have it both ways...it's either fact or it's story.....not both.

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There's no right there's no wrong,there's just popular opinion (Brad Pitt as Jeffery Goines in 12 monkeys)